"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

OCALA, Florida
Ah, the ups and downs of life. Last night I was enjoying the hospitality in a skybox suite at the Republican National Convention. Tonight I’m wondering how I’ll make it home.

Ali and I left Tampa about 6 p.m., and everything seemed fine until the car started making a horrible noise and losing power. We stopped and had a mechanic look at it, but the garage was about to close — 7 p.m. on the Friday before Labor Day — and there was no time for a repair. The mechanic diagnosed a problem either with the timing belt or the valves.

Can we drive it 900 miles with this problem? The mechanic shrugged. Sometimes, it’s OK. Sometimes, it’s not.

Ali said, “Let’s go. We can make it.”

Misery. Horror. Stress. Driving a car that’s obviously if need of expensive repairs, hundreds of miles from home, bone-tired after five days of convention coverage — and yeah, the bank balance isn’t looking too good, either.

We’ve so far made it about 100 miles, but the psychological strain on top of the exhaustion — as I said to Ali, “Woodward and Bernstein didn’t have to deal with this kind of crap.” Neither, for that matter, do my close personal friends Brett Baier and Megyn Kelly, but never mind . . .

We’ll drive another hundred miles or so tonight and then find a motel. Your prayers are most earnestly requested. And your contributions to the Shoe Leather Fund are most sincerely appreciated.

Sounds like the timing belt, consult your owner’s manual for recommended replacement mileage, if you are close that is probably it. Valves would give gradually increasing symptoms – pinging – over time before failing, timing belts tend to just fail.

It isn’t the cheapest part to replace in most cases, unfortunately.

PAcon12

You probably know this already, but if that timing belt breaks while you’re riding down the highway, it could wreck the engine. I would strongly suggest looking for the nearest mechanic today (you’ve got a phone book at the hotel, right?), even if it’s at a *gasp* dealership, and getting that thing replaced. No reason to risk your $$$$ engine to save $$ by tring to make it home to your trusted mechanic.

But what do I know…I’m just some random online commenter, who doesn’t even own a car! Either way, I’ll pray for your safe travels.

A guy who used to work in my machine shop got his ASE certification some years back and now has 50% stake in a garage and U-Haul rental. We trade machine work for mechanic time quite a bit and there has been at least a half dozen 2004-2006 Kia timing belt failures in his shop in the last month. When you start taking them apart you really see the difference between a Kia and a Hyundai. BTW, the timing belt usually needs replacing on an Optima at 60,000 mi.

SDN

Stacey, listen to the man. Broken timing belts can wreck engines in a number of nasty ways, up to and including slinging a piston rod. Frankly, if the first guy you went to there didn’t make that clear, he needs to hang up his wrenches.

SDN

OT: Wombat, your InstaPundit widget looks like it hasn’t updated for several days.

194,000!! Why didn’t you say so. If the Timing Belt is under 60,000 and at 194,000!! it’s probably a crank shaft sensor.

http://qwertyaltofuori.blogspot.com Red

You’re an awesome friend Zilla and awesome friends usually make fierce opponents. I’d hate to be on your bad side

RSM and Ali: Tweeted, tipped, and prayed for by yours truly thanks to your alert!

http://marezilla.com/ Zilla of the Resistance

Thank you for the kind words!

http://wizbangblog.com/ Adjoran

Well, in one way you are lucky: those little towns from Starke down to Ocala are notorious speed traps. Horrible. There is is one that is so bad a guy who got burned a few years ago bought billboards on either side of town to warn approaching drivers.

Wombat_socho

More like a month or so, since the Blogfather’s RSS feed went splat. Smitty and I are working on a replacement.

http://marezilla.com/ Zilla of the Resistance

Yep, I’ve seen the Instawidget frozen on those same posts at a bunch of sites.

http://marezilla.com/ Zilla of the Resistance

Maybe the car trouble was God’s way of slowing Stacy down then, for his own good, since nothing else can get him to do that! A blessing in disguise. Watch the car start running fine by the time he gets close to home.

JeffS

I’m blogging on a borrowed computer, whilst fishing in northern Idaho, but i’ll hit the tip jar when I get back home.

Lee Stranahan

LOL. These two losers stuck on the road, penniless, after bullshitting people at the RNC all week. My faith in God has been restored.